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Biography of Jean-François Millet

(1814-75)

The son of a small peasant farmer of Gréville in Normandy, Millet showed a precocious interest in drawing, and arrived
in Paris in 1838 to become a pupil of Paul Delaroche.
JF Millet had to fight against great odds, living for long a life of extreme penury. The
Millet art was exhibited at the Salon for the first time in
1840, and married two years later. At this time, the main influences on him were Poussin and
Eustache Le Sueur, and the type of Millet
painting produced consisted predominantly of mythological subjects or
portraiture, at which he was especially adept (Portrait of a Naval Officer, 1845; Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen).

His memories of rural life, and his intermittent contacts with Normandy, however, impelled him to that concern with peasant life that was to be
characteristic of the rest of his artistic career. In 1848 Millet Jean-François exhibited The Winnower (now lost) at the
Salon, and this was praised by Théophile Gautier and bought by Alexandre Ledru-Rollin, the Minister of the Interior. In 1849, when
a cholera epidemic broke out in Paris, Millet moved to Barbizon on the advice of the engraver
Charles-Emile Jacque (1813-94)
and took a house near that of Théodore Rousseau. Devoted to this area as a subject for
Millet art, he was one of those who most
clearly helped to create the Barbizon School. Millet paintings on rural themes attracted growing acclaim and between 1858
and 1859 he painted the famous Angélus Millet (Musée d'Orsay), which 40 years later was to be sold for the sensational price of 553,000 francs.

Although Jean-François Millet was officially distrusted because of his real or imaginary Socialist leanings, his own attitude towards his
chosen theme of peasant life was curiously ambivalent. Being of peasant stock, he tended to look upon farm workers as narrow-minded and oblivious of beauty, and
did not accept the notion that `honest toil' was the secret of happiness. In fact, his success partly stemmed from the fact that,
though compared with most of his predecessors and, indeed, his contemporaries,
Jean Millet was a `Realist', the
painter presented this reality in an acceptable form, with a religious or idyllic gloss.

Nevertheless, he became a symbol to younger artists, to whom Jean-François Millet gave help and encouragement. It was Millet who, on a visit to
Le Havre to paint portraits, encouraged Boudin to become an artist, and
paintings by Millet certainly influenced the young Monet, and
even more decidedly so Pissarro, who shared similar political inclinations.
Although towards the end of his life, when Millet started using a lighter palette and freer
brushstrokes, Millet art such as Francois Millet Angelus and The Gleaners showed some affinities with Impressionism, his technique was never really close to theirs. Jean Francois Millet never
painted out-of-doors, and he had only a limited awareness of tonal values, but his draughtsmanship had a monumentality that
appealed to painters such as Seurat and van Gogh, who was also enthralled
by his subject-matter, with its social implications. His career was greatly helped by Durand-Ruel.

Analysis of Best Known Paintings by Millet

Millet The Gleaners
1857, 83.5cm×111cm
In this painting, Millet adopted a vertical composition to depict three peasant women. Wearing coarsely cotton dress and shabby shoes,
Gleaners Millet are bowing to the wheat field gleaning. The background of
The Gleaners by Millet is the endless wheat field, sky and looming working scene.
Jean-François Millet hasn't portrait the right side of the three peasant women. Without any beautification, they are working like ordinary peasants. Millet adopted a distinct outline to make the figures strong and rich colors to endow
Millet The Gleaners with the power of simple and honest.

A deep religious feeling is reflected from the three peasant women: human beings should bow their head to the fate. The birds in the remote sky add the idyllic atmosphere to the scene, but we know that idyllic life is never idealized. The imposing human body predicts the heavy burden of survival. It is the religious feeling that helped
Millet painting The Gleaners go beyond a merely praise of the amazing pastoral to become a truly great oil painting about the close relationship among the human being, the land and survival.
Extensive concern from the public has been aroused at the moment of
The Gleaners was finished. Some critics hold the opinion that Millet painting is filled with obvious political intentions. The working scene in the picture conveys the hardship of the peasants. Some critics even satirize
Millet Gleaners implies the violent revolution of peasants.

Sower
1850, 101X82.5cm
Millet never painted any paintings related to peasant rebellions. The possible reason is that a religious belief is contained in his gentle humanity. However, the image of labours in poverty in painting Sower
and Francois Millet Angelus is a gentle rebellion.
The Sower painted in 1850 is a good example. This painting depicts a deep and strong worker. Jean-François Millet created a simple image like a sculpture to generally express an intriguing content. The tall peasant in red jacket and blue trousers is sowing in the field.
Millet art Sower aroused uneasiness of the ruler, who seemed to see the Parisian resistant people in the revolution in June in the vigorous motions of
the sower. Writer Hugo felt the praise in the human's creativity in
Jean francois Millet The Angelus and Sower.
Vincent van Gogh once said: “in Millet paintings, the image in reality is also symbolic.”